880 




Qass J^ 11 
Book.]] 87 



THE ADMISSION OF OREGON". 



SPEECH 



n /■ 



OF 



HON. HENKY L. DAWES, 



OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



Delivered in the House of Representetives, February 11, 1869; 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 

BUBLL & BLANOHARD, PRINTBRS. 
X859. 



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V'o^ 



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SPEECH OF MR DAWES. 



The bill for the admission or Oregon into the 
Uiiiou being under consideration — 

Mr. DAWES said : 

Mr. Steakkr: I have l)een unable to coincide 
with the views of my colleague, [Mr. CominsJ 
who has just taken his seat, and 1 am compelled 
to vote against the admission of Oregon under 
the Constitution which she brings here in her 
application. I desire, briefly, to assign a few 
reasons for that vote. The question of the ad- 
mission of a new State into our Confederacy is 
addressed to the largest discretion of Congress. 
The Constitution does not command us to ad- 
mit new States." It simply authorizes the exer- 
cise of that power, and leaves to each legislator 
the largest exercise of his discretion, unburdened 
by a single obligation, and untrammelled, save 
by a single limitation. There may be, and 
doubtless often are, considerations which go to 
modify, and to some extent to control, that dis- 
cretion. A large and increasing population, 
stable and permanent in its character, may have 
induced an invitation in advance, in the form 
of an enabling act. Civil commotion may have 
80 disturbed the order of things in a Territory, 
or the Territorial Government may have so 
failed to discharge its proper functions, or to 
render itself acceptable to the people, that one 
may feel constrained, other things being con- 
sistent, to cast a vote for the admission of a 
Territory as a State. Rutin the case of Oregon, 
I know of no such consideration. 

So far as wc have any information, ofKcial 
or otherwise, respecting the population of t,hi> 
Territory, it does not contain more tlnin fifty m- 
sixty thousand inhabitants. But I would as 
soon vot" for her admissiou into the Uni'Hi. w'ith 
sixty thousand, as with any other number, if 



the circumstances which surround her Terri- 
torial existence and position are such as to jus- 
tify it. I make no objection here, that she does 
not come under the enabling act. 

Other things being equal, I would just as soon 
vote for her admission here withoht as with an 
enabling act, if she came here with a Consti- 
tution acceptable to her people and republican 
in principle. No civil commotion exists in all 
her borders ; she is at peace, and is slowly and 
gradually increasing in population, coming forth 
by degrees from the chrysalis of an infant Ter- 
ritory, and clothing herself with the maturity of 
a State. 

I feel, under the circumstances, not only per- 
fectly free, but called upon, to examine her ap- 
plioation, and to weigh both the arguments in 
favor of her admission, and the objections which 
lie against it. My objections tq voting for her 
admission lie in her Constitution itself. I 
cannot agree with my colleague, that her 
Constitution is repnljlican in form. I under- 
stand that phraseology to mean something more 
than mere form. I understand it to be my duty 
to look into that Constitution, and see whether 
it is republican in principle. 

I ani not to be driven from the position of op- 
position to this Con.-^titution, because of the 
charge made against this side of the House — - 
(jf o]iposition to the admission of a free State, 
for the reason that it i ^ Democratic in its polit- 
ical character. The participation 1 had last ses- 
sion ill bringing Minnesota upon this lioor, has 
given evidence that I will admit a free State, 
whatevijr may lie the political character of that 
State. I refer to the record of the Thirty-fourth 
Congress, where I find that my colleague 
vtled agnin.sl the enabling act for the admis- 
diuii oi a free State into the LTnion, because of 



some, to him, valid objections to that act, or 
the organic law it enable! her to make. In the 
vote upon the enabling act for the admission of 
Minnesota, I find my colleague's name recorded 
against it ; and now, strengthened by his ex- 
ample, I make bold, hei'e, to raise my voice in 
opposition to the admission of" Oregon, for rea- 
sons found in her Constitution. 

Those portions of that Constitution most ob- 
jectionable in my mind, I send to the Clerk's 
desk, that they may be read together. They 
have often been alluded to in this debate, but 
not too often ; for more than one reading is ne- 
cessary, in order to learn the full scope and 
meaning of those several propositions. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

" And every white male of foreign birth, of 
' the age of twenty-one years and upw.irds, who 
' shall have resided in the United States one 
' year, and shall have resided in this State during 

* the six months imniediately prefeding such 

* election, and shall have declared his intention 
' to become a citizen of tlie United States one 
' year preceding such election, conformably to 
' the laws of the United States on the .ubject of 
' natnnilization, shall be entitled to vote at all 
' elections authorized by law." 

- " No free negro or mulatto, not residing in 
' this State at the time of the adoption of this 
' Constitution, shall ever come, reside, or be 
' within this State, or hold any real estate, or 

* make any contract, or maintain any suit there- 
' in ; and the Legislative Assembly shall pro- 

* vide by penal laws for the removal, by public 
' officers, of all such free negroes and mulattoes, 

* and for their effectual exclusion from the State, 
' and for the punishment of persons who shall 

* bring them into the State, or employ or har- 

* bor them therein." 

" No Chinaman, not a resident of this State 
' at the time of the adoption of this Constitu- 
' tion, shall ever hold any real estate or mining 
' claim, or work any mining claim therein." 

'' The Legislative Assembly shall provide by 
' law, in the most effective manner, for carrying 
' out the above provision." 

" No negro. Chinaman, or mulatto, shall have 
' the right of suffrage." 

" And the Legislative As.^embly shall have 
' power to restrain and regulate the immiffra- 
' tion to this State of persons not qualified to 
' become citizens of the [Jnitcd States." 

Mr. DAWES. Sir, the first of the articles read 
at the Clerk's desk, I do not propose, in the lim- 
ited time I have now allotted me, to discuss at 
much length. It is an dbjection, in my mind, to 
the admission of Oregon, and a departure from 
tlu; true meaning: of the Constitution, which, in 
my ju'^gment, was never inten<1pd to permit anv 
hut citizens to exercise the elective franchise. It 
first obtained in the case of Michigan, and has 
bi'on fruitful of evil from that dayto this. It en- 
ci,unicred, in the first instance, the uiieuccess- 
f'ul opposition of' all the 'jreat statesmen of that 
day, foremost among whom was Mr. Calhoun, 



now the highest authority with those who con- 
trol this House. 

The second is, in my opinion, as plainly and 
as palpably a violation of the Constitution of 
the United States as any provision capable of 
being draughted by man. I hold myself re- 
sponsible upon this floor, if by my vote I 
breathe the breath of life into that Constitu- 
tion, just as much as if it were embodied in a 
bill before Congress, and by my vote that bill 
was made a law. Without the vote of a majority 
upon this floor, that Constitution falls still-born; 
by the_ vote of a majority, it becomes the organic 
law of the Territory of Oregon. I am not able, 
whatever may be the ability of others upon this 
floor, to divest myself of the responsibility, if 
I vote for this bill, of voting for that whjcli, in 
my conscience. I believe to be unconstitutional. 
Indeed, the bill before us declares, in so many 
words, that the Constitution of Oregon is in 
conformity with that of the United States. That 
provision of the Constitution which excludes 
free people of color from the Tm-ritory is, in 
my opinion, as I have said, clearly unconstitu- 
tional : 

" No free negro or mulatto, not residing in 
' this State at the time of the adoption of this 
' C(9nstitution, shall ever come, reside, or be 
' within this State, or hold any real estate, or 
* make any contract, or maintain any suit 
' therein." 

Sir, that cannot, in the nature of things, be 
republican in this Confederacy of States, which 
cannot be adopted and carried out in practice 
under the Constitution by all the States. One 
State of this Union cannot arrogate to itself 
prerogatives, the exercise of which cannot be 
assumed by all the States of this Union. If 
the State of Oregon has the right to drive from 
its borders all free people of color, every other 
State has the same right ; and we might as 
well here enact a law to drive every one of 
them into the broad ocean, as to authorize by 
our vote here the State of Oregon to drive them 
from the Territory. It is a part of that scheme 
long since initiated, and already ripened into 
statutes in some of the States, of degrading, 
oppressing, and at last subjugating, the free 
pi'Ople of color into Slavery in this country — a 
scheme as inhuman and as infamous as it is 
uncoiistitutional. 

It is unconstitutional under that provision of 
the Constitution of the United States which 
guaranties to citizens of each State all tlie 
privileges and immuuities of citi/iens in the sev- 
eral States ; and, in maintenance of that doc- 
trine. I need not go further than the Dred Scott 
decision. That decision, which struck more 
fatal blows at the rights of men thnn ever be- 
fore, in the hi^tory of the Government, fell upon 
innocent and unoft'ending heads, is not broad 
enough to take this clause of the Orogon Con- 
stitution or.t fJ!" conflict with that of the United 
States. Here is the doctrine laid down by 
Chief Justice Taney, in the opinion of the 



6 



. Oourt, where he defines what that clause in the 
Constitution of the United States guaranties to 
;he citizen of one State, when he goes into an- 
3ther. 

" But, so far as mere rights of person are 
' concerned, the provision in question is con- 
' fined to citizens of a State who are temporarily 

* in another State without taking up their resi- 
' deuce there. It gives them no political rights 
' in the State, as to voting, or holding office, or 

* in any other respect. For a citizen of one 
' State"^has no right to participate in the Gov- 
' erument of another. But, if he ranks as a 
' citizen in the State to which he belongs, with- 
' in the meaning of the Constitution of the 
' United States, then, whenever he goes into 
' another State, the Constitution clothes him, as 
' to the rights of person, with all the privileges 
' and immunities which belong to citizens of the 
' State. And if persons of the African race are 
' citizens of a State, and of the United States, 
' they would be entitled to all of these privileges 
' and ininiunities in every State, and the State 

* could not restrict them ; for they would hold 
' these privilegt'S and iminuuitics under the 
' pura.mount authority of the Federal Goveni- 
' luenr, and its cf/urts would be bound to maiu- 
' tain and enforce them, the Constitution and 
' laws of the Stiite to the contrary notwitht^tand- 
' ing. And if the States could limit ov restrict 
' them, or place the p;vrty in an inferior grade, 
' this clause ofthc Constitution would be unmean- 
' ing, and could have no operation ; and would 

* give no rights to the citizen when in another 
' State. He woidd have none bvit what the 
' State itself chose to allow him. This is evi- 
' dently not the construction or meaning of the 
' clause in question. It guaranties rights to 

* the citizen, and the State cannot withhold 
' them." 

Now, I think no man will for a moment con- 
tend, that if the classes of persons described in 
this section of the Oregon Constitution, now 
under consideration, shall be included in this 
idea of a citizen, then, according to the Consti- 
tution, as expounded in the Dred Scott decision 
itself, this provision, which attempts not only to 
drive them fiom its border, but to prevent their 
holding property, making contracts, suing in 
the courts, or even eating the bread of life with- 
in her borders, does violate that provision of 
the Constitution to which I have referred. This 
same opinion defines who are the citizens of 
the United States, to whom these rights are 
guarantied. I ask the House to listen to that 
definition, and then I will show the House that 
that definition applies to a large class of my 
own constituents, and the constituents of mv 
colleague, who lias just taken his seat, and 
who represents a comiucrcial city from wlnV'h, 
because of their euiplovment as seamen, 
moi'e than from other sections of our State, 
will they go forth U Oregon, :aul come in 
conflict with thi;j provision. Chief Justice 
Tuney says : 



" It is true, every person, and every class and 
' description of persons, who were at the time 
' of the adoption of the Constitution recognised 
' as citizens in the several States, became also 
' citizens of this new political body ; but none 
' other ; it was formed by them, and for them 
' and their posterity, but for no one else. And the 
' personal rights and privileges guarantied to 
' citizens of this new sovereignty were intended 
' to embrace those only who were then mem- 
' bers of the several State communities, or who 
' should afterwards by birthright or otherwise be- 
' come members, according to the provisions of 
' the Constitution and the principles on which 
* it was founded. It was the union of those who 
' were at that time members of distinct and sep- 
' arate political communities into one political 
' family, whose power, for certain specified pur- 
' poses, was to extend over the whole territory 
' of the United States. And it gave to each 
' citizen rights and privileges outside of his 
' St.ate which he did not before possess, and 
' })laced him in every other State upon a perfect 
' equality with its own citizens as to rights of 
' person and rights of property ; it made hijii a 
' citizen ofthc United States." 

Now, sir, in respect to my own State. In 
1780, she adopted her present Constitution ; be- 
fore which the shackles i'l-ll fi-om the limbs of 
every slave within her borders, and he stood 
forth clothed with all the privileges, rights, and 
immunities, of a citizen. Tlic Constitution of 
Massachusetts, in the rights, privileges, and im- 
munities, of the citizen, is no more a respecter 
of persons than is the God her people worship. 
From 1780 until 1789, when the Constitution of 
the United States was adopted, every colored 
man who lived in that community was just as 
much a citizen as every white man. And the 
Chief Justice, in this opinion, says that he and 
his posterity are to-day citizens of the United 
States, and have all the rights, and privileges, 
and immunities, in the State of Oregon, that 
every citizen of that State has. I cannot under- 
stand, sir, how a member from my own State, 
in the hone.st discharge of his duty, always as 
honest a discharge of it as my own, can come 
to the conclusion that it is his duty, by his vote, 
to breathe the breath of life into a provision of 
a Constitution that would disfranchise a large 
portion of the people of Massachusetts. I de- 
sire to call up, in the recollection of my colleague, 
the efforts Massachusetts has made heretofore 
to test the rights of her citizens to the privileges 
and immunities of citizenship in other States. 
1 desire to have it remembered — I do not in- 
tend ever to forget it — that Massachusetts has 
utterly failed ti3 obtain a decision of the ques- 
tion in the highest tribunal of the country, 
whether or not there is any force and effect in 
this provision of the Constitution, ns expounded, 
even in this latter day, by the Supreme Court 
of the United States. J, fur one. do not intend 
to forget the indignities heaped u])Ou h(>r in her 
struggle to secure to her citizens their rights 



« 



under this clause. I will never vote to incor- 
porate into the organic law provisions under 
•vrhich the constitutional rights of citizens oi 
Massachusetts have been trampled in the dust, 
and her State sovereignty defied and insulted. 

Sir, I desire to call attention to the phraseol- 
ogy of this provision ; for there seems to be a 
studied malignityin this phraseology, that I can- 
not well comprehend in the Constitution of a 
State : 

" No free negro or mulatto, not residing in 
' this State at the time of the adoption of this 

* Constitution, shall ever come, reside, or be, 

* witliin this State." 

They could not condescend to say " volun- 
tarily." A citizen of my State may be drifted 
by stress of weather into their harbors ; a 
whaler, -with a citizen of my State, included in 
this provision, may be brought in there ; and 
the humble sailor, having no command of the 
ship, no responsibility, and no control, may be 
taken in there against his will ; and yet this 
Constitution imposes a duty upon the Legisla- 
ture to provide penalties to be visited upon his 
head. Without being aware of it, he may come 
within the limits of that. State, and incur the 
penalty. And, furthermore, he who shall "em- 
ploy " or " harbor " such person, comes under 
the same visitation. They have not inserted 
"knowingly." It may be done ignorantly and 
innocently, and yet come within the letter of 
this provision. 

And, sir, I do not know by what test a man 
may tell one of those from another class of 
colored persons which this provision of the 
Constitution permits to remain there. The 
Constitution has made no provision that they 
shall wear frontlets upon their brow ; but who- 
soever, knowingly or not, innocently or design- 
edly, whether in obedience to the Divine in- 
junction to feed the hungry and clothe the 
naked, or with a design to violate the law ; all 
alike are denounced as transgressors of the law, 
and each, one and all, come within this provis- 
ion of the Constitution. 

1 desire also to say, sir, before I take leave 
of that provision which denies to a certain class 
of colored persons the right to bring suits in 
the courts of Oregon, that it exceeds in cruelty 
and inhumanity any provision touching the 
same subject in any slave code in the United 
States, so far as I know. There is not a slave in 
a slave State who has not, under her laws, a 
right to maintain a suit in her courts. I believe 
such an inhuman provision could not stand an 
hour, sir, in your own State of South Carolina. 
Let any man bring a colored person into Ore- 
gon, and claim him as a slave ; if this Consti- 
tution is sanctioned by our votes and made the 
organic law of Oregon, there is no way given 
am )iig men by which he could invoke her 
courts to give him his freedom. It is reserved 
for this so-called free State to invent a metinni 
more subtile and (.effectual for niKintiiiiiing Sla- 
very in her own borders than was ever devised 



south of Mason and Dixon's line. Thus it is 
that the most efficient instrumentalities for car- 
rying out the great work of the slave propaganda 
are furnisned by the North, and in the name 
of Freedom. This is the false and hollow-hearted 
pretence that Oregon is a free State. 

The refined cruelty as well as unconstitu- 
tionality of these provisions justify the conclu- 
sion that the framers of this instrument sought 
in them to make to the institution of Slavery 
some atonement for having excluded it under 
the ordinary forms and name from the State. 
And the atonement seems to be ample. ' The 
people who will^ tolerate the one are prepared 
tor the other. The victims of the one system 
are already in the vestibule of the ether. 

Again, take the provision in reference to the 
Chinamen. While that provision permits one 
class of Chinamen to reside within that State, 
with all the personal rights and privileo-es of 
citizens, it disables, while it permits them to 
reside there, another class of Chinamen ; and 
thus that State, which pi-etends to come here 
upon the cardinal principle of equality, builds 
uj) two classes of foreign men in that commu- 
nity — one with personal rights and privileges 
as citizens; and another disabled, with no rights 
to hold real estate or to exercise any of the 
great immunities of citizens — one class of 
Chinamen mere serfs, and the other clothed 
with all personal rights. Now, there is a pro- 
vision in our treatj with China, providing that 
the United States and China shall be ibrever 
at peace with each other, and with all the 
citizens thereof, " iinlhout e.xccplion to persons 
or places ; " and I would like to ask gentlemen 
how that provision comports with the provision 
of the Constitution to which I have referred ? 
I would like to know if there were such a treaty 
stipulation existing between us and Great Brit- 
ain, and we should make an invidious distinction 
between different classes of her subjects, dis- 
abling upon the same soil some of them, and 
granting to others the personal rightii|of the 
citizen, whether we should not be called to ac- 
count for it? It is an infraction of treaty 
stipuliitious, whicli are the supreme law of the 
land. 

A Chinaman may become a naturalized citi- 
zen in California. What, then, would be his rights, 
under the Constitution, should hego to Oregon? 
He was a citizen of the United States before he 
left California, entitled under the Constitution 
to all the privileges and immunities of a citi- 
zen of Oregon, when he crosses the line. Yet 
this State Cunstitution says that he " shall never 
hold any real estate or mining claim, or work 
any mining claim, therein." 

There is one other provision of this Constitu- 
tion to which I have not alluded, although I 
have alreailv quoted it. It is as follows : 

" And the Legislative Assembly shall have 
' jHJwer to restrain and regulate! th(! inimigra- 
' tiou to this State of p(n's(iiis not qualilicd to 
* become citiziius of the United States." 



Under this provision the African slave trade 
can be reopened. That is now prttvented only 
by a law of Congress. We enact this provision 
by our votes in its favor, and it grants full au- 
thority to bring blacks from Africa, and to 
prescribe the terms and provisions upon which 
it may bo done. I know of no way that any 
African, so brought, could, by the aid of the 
courts of Oregon, relieve himself from bondage. 
And, if we give this authority, no penalty can 
be visited upon the heads of those who partiai- 
pate in the traffic between Oregon and Africa. 

This, sir, is not only not a republican Con- 
stitution, but it is not a free Constitution. It 
is a departure from all our ideas of a republican 
Constitution. It makes odious distinctions 
among classes of men — among individuals of 
the same class. It ruthlessly tramples the 
\ rights of the citizen in the dust. It arrogates 
to itself prerogatives that cannot be exercised 
in common by all the States. It trenches oa 
the guarantees of the Constitution of the United 
States. Sworn to support that Constitution, I 



cannot sanction this. I cannot be driven from 
niy opposition, because there are other provis- 
ions of this Constitution which incline some to 
call it a free State ; or because, if I remand it 
back to a Territorial Government, under the 
I^red Scott decision, Slavery exists there. I 
demand something more than a free State in 
name. I want the reality. If Slavery exists 
in Oregon while a Territory, it is because the 
people_ want it; and if they want it, they will 
make it a slave State, in name as well as in 
fact, within a twelvemonth, if admitted. 

These are some of the reasons why I cannot 
vote for this bill. I speak -for no individual 
here but myself, and ior no constituency but 
my own. I think I know their sentiments ; and 
should I vote for this bill, I should expect to be 
burned in etligy at every cross-road in my dis- 
trict. I do not intend to disappoint, in this re- 
spect, the just expectation of those who seut me 
here. I shall vote NO. 

[Here the hammer fell.] 



